It had to have happened recently. Sabian uses a company over in Germany to market there for like 2 or 4 years now. Maybe they decided to move part of Canada factory over there to avoid shipping.

I've seen a couple of these as well. They were older cymbals though.

Mike

In the early half of the 80's Sabian b8/b8 Plus were made at the Tosco factory in Italy. Those same b8/b8 Plus were briefly made in Germany in 1986, after the closing of the Tosco factory, before they moved the manufacturing of these lines to Canada.

So Pinksterboer had it wrong? In The Cymbal Book (p153) he says

but he is somewhat vague about the year. Based on what he says

all we know from that is that the original B8 series should be after 1981 (that's the founding date Pinksterboer has for Sabian) and an unknown number of years before 1988.

I certainly agree that the ink style used on the B20 by Sabian and the B8 by Sabian shows the same hand in the design, but that could be Sabian's graphic artists and nothing to do with Tosco vs a German producer. Here's a Made in Germany

[img]http://black.net.nz/sabian/14-B8-by-Sabian2.png[/img]

One which doesn't seem to have Made in Germany (or did that part of the ink get carefully removed?)

[img]http://black.net.nz/sabian/20-B8-by-Sabian-no-Germany.png[/img]

and a Tosco from Italy:

[img]http://black.net.nz/sabian/B20-by-Sabian-ink.png[/img]

If the B8 by Sabian from Germany were close to or post reunification (1990) that would explain why the ink says Made in Germany rather than Made in West Germany, although I wouldn't read too much into whether the word West is included in terms of definitive production years. More of an unsolved puzzle.

Thanks for the update. I even didn't know about this.